Tristan's perfect pitch and perfect timing for the Aleluya

Smooth and fluid lifting of the black veil

Tristan has already won a fan here: a girl who looks like me when I was little :)

An Easter souvenir shot with  the two cantora trainors and members of the Aleluya choir

The angel pose was carried over even after the Aleluya performance

There was no tinge of nervousness from his voice while singing the aleluya song. Not out of tune either and the pitch was excellent. Even the rope carrying his body weight was moving smoothly and flawlessly as he was descending  to lift the black veil off from the Blessed Mother's face. Even the rain was cooperative. The drizzle was short lived and light, more like a blessing from heaven.

Congratulations, Tristan for a marvelous performance this Easter Sunday's dawn aleluya. In Bulusan's dialect Tristan is the 'nagdagit sa aleluya'.

Photographs by Alma P. Gamil

Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philipines

Santa Marta: A beautiful Act of devotion

For the discerning eye, it is evident, everything about the Santa were meticulously prepared. The style of the gown, the accessories used, the flowers and even the color combination were so excellent that one can sense a professional designer's hand behind the exquisite presentation.

Surprisingly, the effect was not ostentatious but rather a high couture and a manifestation of a sense of style on the part of the 'carer' of the Santa.

Santa Marta will always be dear to me since she 'lives' just beside our residence in Central, only a house away. I have known her since I was a child. She never ages. She is as beautiful as ever and more radiant now in the hands of a devoted carer- a grandson of our neighbor. Without fail the Santa always catches my curiosity for the whole week of the Kamahalan (Holy Week) when all the town's santas and santos are present at the Saint James the Greater Parish Church of Bulusan.

Taking care of a Santa for the Kamahalan is an act of devotion and faith in Bulusan. Although done only once a year, the preparation for the event entails not just a short span of days or weeks. It is actually a way of life for the carer that will last a lifetime and will extend to the next in the family line or whoever will be fortunate enough to be given the task of caring a Santa.

Indeed Santa Marta is an example of a Bulusanon's spirit of devotion and faith. An eloquent statement of love and care for the Santa as translated in the visual form.

Gazing at Santa Marta in the Palm Sunday afternoon procession, I can honestly say that  Santa Marta in her most beautiful regalia is a visual prayer expressed in a most stylish form. A testament of a Bulusanon's creativity and talent.

Photographs by Alma P. Gamil
Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philippines

Kanda

The flowers knew exactly the best time to appear. I n the church grounds of Bulusan Saint James the Greater Parish grounds, blooming 'kandas' exude a sense of celebration and zest to the surroundings. Its understated beauty underscores though the solemnity of the 'Kamahalan', Holy week in Bulusan. It is during these summer vacation months that the kanda flowers profusely.

Others may call the flowering tree with other names. But in Bulusan, we simply call these flowers as kanda. Our favorite since we were little were those plain white variety standing in the backyard of our playmate in Poblacion Central. It's gone now.

Photo by Alma P. Gamil
Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philippines

Tristan is the lead angel in Bulusan's Aleluya

This coming Sunday, in an elaborate folk theater complete with props and a 3-story tall structure tower, an angel will descend from here to lift the black veil off the Blessed Mother's face. This signifies the end of mourning and the peak of the celebration-The Resurrection. Aleluya in Bulusan.

Tristan with his young frame--not yet a teener (but not too young to be always in the company of her watchful mom), will have the chance of a life time to do the task. A feat since he will be fastened in a contraption that looks like an enlarge chicken nest. This will slowly descend as he sings in his angelic voice the 'Aleluya' song that he has been practicing for weeks now under the tutelage of a local cantora.

Let us wish Tristan a successful and and shining performance on his momentous and glorious role--lead angel soloist of the 'aleluya' event in Bulusan. In the local parlance, he will be the 'madagit', an allusion of a flying angel  from above (heavens). In one swift precise move Tristan must be able to lift the veil  not unlike that of a bird of prey snapping a prey-thus the name 'dagit' which means to snap. The black veil covering the face of the mourning Blessed Mother will be the target as she passes by during the early morning procession prior to the main event.

Photos show a confident but shy Tristan on his way home to Lubas, San Rafael after the Palm Sunday Mass and Hosana in Bulusan. Also in the photo is his mom and younger brother (obviously too tired and sleepy because of the early dawn 'hosana' singing chores around the Poblacions of which both of them were members of the choir for the Palm Sunday 'hosana'). The same choir will perform in the Aleluya event.

Palm Sunday is 'hosana' in Bulusan.



Photographs by Alma P. Gamil
Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philippines

Portraits of two 'Hosana' angels

After warming up with my short friendly chats in the dialect, the 'angels' obliged to friendly poses as opposed to the initial astonished poses. It took only minutes for the girls to change from hesitant to friendly. My short chats  immediately changed their mood, an attitude that is typical of the friendly nature of the Bulusanon.

The two angels were delighted to pose for these two souvenir shots of 2013 Palm Sunday for me. Their natural friendliness shine even in the photo.

Photographs by Alma P. Gamil
Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philippines

Palm Sunday Images in Bulusan

The Palm Sunday event was a visual feast so beautiful and unbearably light. So distinctly Bulusanon.

Images by Alma P. Gamil
Saint James the Greater Parish Chuch/grounds, Bulusan, Sorsogon
Philippines

The 'teen weaver' photo

Hilda Espano was actually twenty (she looks younger than her age) that year (2011) when I photographed her in their open anahaw hut in Sitio Tawog. With an earphone plugged on her ears, she was busily chatting on the phone with her friends and weaving at the same time while I continuously take photos of the weaving and its milieu.
The setting was typical in Bulusan. As I'd expected, there were the usual tools of the trade (hurmahan i.e. wooden block, hiyod or bamboo stick karagumoy strips softner, stone polisher etc.),  the strewn unfinished karagumoy hats, the strips of karagumoy ready for weaving and the almost finished hats ready for trimming and soon for delivery to the nearest trader just across the street--a sari-sari store that sells also cell phone loads for Hilda's use. She told me though that most of the proceeds of the hats after weaving go to the more important daily household needs and for petty cash as well.

Photograph by Alma P. Gamil
Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philippines

Ragayray is Ipomoea pes-caprae

According to my co-members at the Co's digital Flora of the Philippines FB site, the scientific name of this very familiar crawling vine (ragayray to us in Bulusan) growing lushly and wild near the beaches of Bulusan is Ipomoea pes-caprae.

Though not rare, this plant's botanical name seems to bestow it a sense of a special quality making me looked closely to the minute details-- the color hue of the flower, its veins, the shape of the leaves etcetera. Assigning  formal names gives the plant (for example this common ragayray) a sort of identity for us to take notice and be more mindful of our surroundings including the familiar and the common.

Ordinary flora are commonly taken for granted because of their ordinariness. Familiarity sometimes makes a thing invisible to our sight even though it is right in front of us.

By committing to memory ragayray's formal name, it suddenly becomes extraordinary! The name even sounded like a spell to me while I repeatedly practiced the right way to say it. Ipomoea pes-caprae. Ipomoea pes-caprae. Ipomoea pes-caprae...

Photographs by Alma P. Gamil
Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philippines

Finding Merton one slow afternoon in Bulusan

For, like a grain of fire

Smouldering in the heart of every living essence

God plants His undivided power –

Buries His thought too vast for worlds

In seed and root and blade and flower,

The Sowing of Meanings

by Thomas Merton

See the high birds! Is their’s the song

That dies among the wood-light

Wounding the listener with such bright arrows?

Or do they play in wheeling silences

Defining in the perfect sky

The bounds of (here below) our solitude,

Where spring has generated lights of green

To glow in clouds upon the sombre branches?

Ponds full of sky and stillnesses

What heavy summer songs still sleep

Under the tawny rushes at your brim?

More than a season will be born here, nature,

In your world of gravid mirrors!

The quiet air awaits one note,

One light, one ray and it will be the angels’ spring:

One flash, one glance upon the shiny pond, and then

Asperges me! sweet wilderness, and lo! we are redeemed!

For, like a grain of fire

Smouldering in the heart of every living essence

God plants His undivided power –

Buries His thought too vast for worlds

In seed and root and blade and flower,

Until, in the amazing light of April,

Surcharging the religious silence of the spring,

Creation finds the pressure of His everlasting secret

Too terrible to bear.

Then every way we look, lo! rocks and trees

Pastures and hills and streams and birds and firmament

And our own souls within us flash, and shower us with light,

While the wild countryside, unknown, unvisited of men,

Bears sheaves of clean, transforming fire.

And then, oh then the written image, schooled in sacrifice,

The deep united threeness printed in our being,

Shot by the brilliant syllable of such an intuition, turns within,

And plants that light far down into the heart of darkness and oblivion,

Dives after, and discovers flame.

  — from Selected Poems of Thomas Merton, by Thomas Merton

Photo from http://pamughaton.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/tag-sudang/ Camia is a local flower with a fragrance that is most exquisite. A perfect subtle kind of sweetness. It thrives abundantly in Bulusan.

Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philippines

Mapaso: Bulusan's Indigenous Healing Ground

Mapaso  is a healing spring in Bulusan located in the village of Buhang. Hot waters shoot out from naturally  elevated ground crevices to join the sea several steps away.

Attributed by locals with healing powers, visits to the spring are usually made during Fridays.

Mini rivulets of hot flowing waters leave its track to the sea with a reddish-hue. The waters has a rich mineral taste to it and the smell can only be described as volcanic in origin.
(Note: the heart shaped silhouette  of the leaves)

In front of  Mapaso is a rich fishing ground for artisanal fishermen with 'agahid' (a pole with net on one end). 

The low cliff where Mapaso is located can be seen along the main road of Sitio Taisan in Barangay Buhang (San Vicente).

Boulders strewn along the beach  that look like  remnants of past volcanic eruption  form an impressive Rock Beach landscape adding a sense of  excitement and energy to the mysterious Mapaso spring.

Interesting bubbles form in the low-tide waters fronting Mapaso.

note: The heart shaped silhouette appears again in my photograph. See middle photo. This is not intentional. It just appears whenever I take photos of nature in Bulusan.

Photographs by Alma P. Gamil
Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philippines

Veronica Gallanosa: Bulusan's woman eco warrior

"How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!"

                                                    Maya Angelou, African American Poet

Veronica is a name of a Santa in Bulusan's Kamahalan (Holy Week). She is the female saint who was there in the most difficult times of Jesus' Passion. Santa Veronica is one of my favorite santas.

In Bulusan, a present day Veronica is in our midst. I don't know her a lot and she does not know me either except for the short professional profiles in the web sites of AGAP, Inc, PRESERVE and LinkIn. But the hundreds of photos depicting her involvement in the various activities of AGAP and PRESERVE kept on recurring. Her images at work in the field as I browse the sites were so remarkable and impressive to be taken for granted. Indeed, a hero is always present in our midst. All we have to do is to 'see'.

In the original caption for this photo, Veronica says: "Ready for the Ascent". So true. The communities she serves are mostly upland villages of Bulusan town.

She lives also in the peripheral communities at the foot of Bulusan Volcano. She hails from the village of Sapngan and is presently residing in Barangay Mabuhay in the Poblacion. With options open to professionals like her, she opted to stay in our hometown to devote her professional life in the service of Bulusan's youth as one of the teachers at the Bulusan National High School. A mother of three kids. A mother who loves mother nature.

As if this is not enough. She volunteered to AGAP, Inc and rose to the ranks of VP for Research and Education. Of course, this VP label is just that, a label. What I'm more interested at are these extraordinary works she has done so far in the real field. In the mountains and forest of Bulusan particularly.

The photos as you will see tell a story of a woman with a passion and persistence in her goal for achieving a healthy environment for us and the future Bulusanons. In silence, I can only gaze at the photos in admiration and realize that passion in the environment knows no gender.

She is a woman with an extraordinary big heart.

She deserves to be called a female warrior. An eco warrior in the league of Philip.

A hero, too!  A (s)hero!

In the celebration of the International Women's Day this coming March 8, Veronica  is my hero!

Happy International Women's Day, Veronica!

With Philip G. Bartilet, the indefatigable co eco-warrior during the 2008 Saringaya Awards.

post script quote:

"Every society needs heroes. And every society has them. The reason we don't often see them is because we don't bother to look.

"There are two kinds of heroes. Heroes who shine in the face of great adversity, who perform an amazing feat in a difficult situation. And heroes who live among us, who do their work unceremoniously, unnoticed by many of us, but who make a difference in the lives of others.

Heroes are selfless people who perform extraordinary acts. The mark of heroes is not necessarily the result of their action, but what they are willing to do for others and for their chosen cause. Even if they fail, their determination lives on for others to follow. The glory lies not in the achievement, but in the sacrifice."

― Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

Photographs borrowed from PRESERVE and AGAP-Bulusan, Inc sites.

text by Alma P. Gamil

Bulusan, Sorsogon, Philippines